Contemporary Trends in Sharia

Contemporary Trends in Sharia: Critical Debates in Historical Context explores how Muslims worldwide are reinterpreting Islamic law to meet the challenges of modern life. From human rights and gender justice to economics, property, and dispute resolution, Enayat and Keshavjee demonstrate that shari?a is not as rigid a code as exaggerated by some, but is a living tradition and an unfinished project. Drawing on the voices of reformist and progressive thinkers, it illuminates the creative, contested, and urgent search for justice and flourishing at the heart of Islam’s encounter with the twenty-first century. Vital reading. – Ebrahim Moosa, Professor, University of Notre Dame, USA.Carefully researched and clearly written, Contemporary Trends in Sharia offers a rigorous and accessible analysis of today’s key debates on Islamic law. The authors examine how modernist, progressive, and neo-traditionalist thinkers have approached areas such as constitutionalism, human rights, gender, bioethics, economics, and even the challenges posed by AI. By situating these debates in wider historical and political contexts and tracing their reception among Muslims, the book combines scholarly depth with clarity. It is an authoritative contribution to the study of Islamic law, reform, and modernity. – Abdullah Saeed, Sultan of Oman, Professor, University of Melbourne, AustraliaA timely and deeply engaging exploration of how modernist and progressive Muslim thinkers reinterpret sharia amid modern moral, political, and technological challenges and how these ideas are received by lay-Muslims. A must read for anyone seeking to understand the dynamism of modern Islamic thought. – Masooda Bano, Professor, University of Oxford, UKFor a Jew, interested in inter-faith harmony, this fascinating book opens doors of understanding, as befits Sharia, which, I learn, is “the way to the watering place”. The authors have written a deeply impressive work from the point of view of a modern progressive Islam. Here the educated layperson, Muslim or non-Muslim alike, can learn of the tensions and solutions of a liberal Islamic approach to the age-old problems of a moral life, be it personal, familial, or economic, and of the ends of justice. – Rt Hon Professor Sir Bernard Rix, Professor, Queen Mary University, UK

Hadi Enayat is Assistant Professor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations at Aga Khan University, London, UK, and Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy-Centre, UK.

Mohamed Keshavjee LLB, LLM, is Senior Research Scholar at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, UK, and Barrister-at-Law from Gray’s Inn, London, UK.